Welcome New Faculty!

Mollie Aschenbrener, Agriculture, taught secondary agricultural courses at Paso Robles High School for 11 years before leaving to attend the University of Missouri. She completed her doctorate in agricultural education in 2008. Aschenbrener was a lecturer at CSU, Chico from 2008 to 2011 before being hired as an assistant professor in the College of Agriculture. Her research interests include teacher education, creativity and effective teaching, and leadership. Aschenbrener has authored or co-authored numerous journal articles and is currently working to develop an online Master of Science in Agricultural Education at CSU, Chico through the AG*IDEAconsortium.

Zaur Berkaliev, Mathematics and Statistics, received his PhD in mathematics education from Indiana University, Bloomington, in 2003. Previously, he earned his PhD in mathematics (1985) and BS/MS in mathematics (1981, with honors) at Lomonosov Moscow State University. His current research interests focus on the Elkonin-Davydov mathematics curriculum from Russia and on the applications of dynamic systems and chaos to mathematics education. Berkaliev’s extensive teaching experiences range from geometry and topology to problem solving and assessment and evaluation. His work in these areas builds on his own experience as a winner of Soviet math olympiads. In addition to teaching, he has served as dean of a teacher training college, director of an international educational-advising center, and director of a distance education and telecommunications center. He has been awarded a Fulbright Scholarship (1998) and Freedom Support Act Scholarship (1996). He has also served as PI and as international coordinator of mathematics education projects funded by the NSF.

Lindsay Briggs, Health and Community Services, is a graduate of Indiana University with a doctorate in health behavior and a minor in African studies. She comes to Chico State with a wealth of experience and expertise in sexuality, global public health, community health, and community-based participatory research. Briggs has a special interest in research and public health intervention in African countries and plans to start a short-term African study-abroad program here at Chico State.

Maria Giovanni, Nutrition and Food Sciences, joins Chico State with a variety of academic, industry, and government experiences. A Northern California native, she has degrees in food science from UC Davis (BS, MS) and Colorado State University (PhD) and an MBA from Arizona State University. Her industry experience includes product development, sensory evaluation, and consumer research with diverse consumer goods companies such as the Dial Corporation, Coors, Celestial Seasonings, and Clorox. She has also worked with Cooperative Extension and the USDA in food and nutrition education. Giovanni’s research interests focus on using both qualitative and quantitative methods to study the sensory properties of foods, especially related to increasing fruit, vegetable, and grain diversity and quality in the diet, and dietary acculturation and food consumption behaviors both at and away from home. She enjoys using food as a way to engage people in learning about science, health, and culture.

Kim T. Hinrichs, Management, received his PhD from New Mexico State University. His research interests include leadership, followership, and obedience to authority in organizations. He has published in numerous journals and has presented his work internationally. Previously he was on the faculty of Minnesota State University and also has held visiting appointments at University of Central Florida and Mikkeli University of Applied Sciences in Finland. Prior to pursuing an academic career, he worked in public accounting.

Emily Huang, Finance and Marketing, recently completed her PhD in finance at Washington State University. Her primary research interest focuses on how institutional holding and trading affects security risk. In addition, she intends to investigate how changes in constraints on institutional investors affect institutional ownership and institutional trading, and examine the role of institutional investors in corporate governance. Before joining Chico State, she worked as a visiting assistant professor at Wayne State University in Detroit, Michigan, for one year. Huang grew up in Wuhan, China. She earned her BS in finance at Wuhan University in China and earned her MS in economics at the University of Idaho. She is looking forward to contributing to the teaching and learning process at Chico State and to the Chico community.

Helen Karpilovsky, School of Nursing, received her Bachelor of Science in Nursing from CSU, Chico and her MSN with a major in psychiatric adult mental health from Rush University in Chicago, Illinois. She is currently pursuing a PhD. In 2005, she taught Pharmacology and Nursing Fundamentals at Butte College. Karpilovsky has been with the CSU, Chico Nursing department since 2006, where she is a psychiatric clinical instructor and a theoretical EBP–Research instructor.

Gayle Kipnis, School of Nursing, graduated from nursing school at Golden West College in Huntington Beach in 1973. Volunteering with the American Heart Association early in her career, Kipnis found teaching challenging and rewarding. As a lifelong learner, she achieved her bachelor’s degree in nursing at Northern Arizona University in 2001 and was honored with the Gold Axe Award for her dedication and commitment to nursing. At the University of New Mexico, she earned her master’s degree in nursing education in 2007 and also received the “Nurse Educator of the Year” award from Northern Arizona Healthcare. In 2008, Kipnis was the recipient of the prestigious Betty Irene Moore Fellowship, which fully funded her PhD studies at the University of California, San Francisco for three years. Her current dissertation research explores the association of sleep during pregnancy with birth outcomes. In her leisure time, Kipnis enjoys fishing and whitewater rafting in our local Northern California lakes and rivers.

Jessika Lawrence, Communication Sciences and Disorders, is a Chico State alumna (BA, Speech Pathology and Audiology, ’99; MA, Speech–Language Pathology, ’01). She received her PhD in communication disorders at Florida State University in 2008, where her research focused on childhood language and literacy with an emphasis in articulation and phonological disorders. She looks forward to establishing interdisciplinary relationships on campus and in the community to explore service delivery methods within the primary-school setting. Lawrence comes to Chico with her husband, John, and two young children.

Chang Lee, Recreation, Hospitality, and Parks Management, served as an assistant professor at the school of Restaurant, Hospitality and Meetings Management at the University of Alabama and the school of Hotel, Restaurant, and Tourism Management at the New Mexico State University. He was also a faculty of business administration at the Black Hills State University. He earned his PhD from Oklahoma State University in hospitality administration, Education Specialist degree in human services from University of Central Missouri, Master in Commercial Aviation from Delta State University, and BS in hospitality and tourism management from Black Hills State University. He is also a Certified Hotel Administrator. Lee has over 13 years of management experience in the hospitality and travel industry. He worked in different segments of the industry, including hotels, restaurants, resorts, and clubs in different positions. His research involves the use and impact of diversified workforces in the hospitality industry. Lee has published in scholarly journals and made numerous presentations in national and international conferences.

Ghang-Ho Lee, Electrical and Computer Engineering, received a PhD in electrical and computer engineering from Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana, in 2006. From 2002 to 2006, while pursuing his PhD, he was a recipient of a Korean Government Scholarship from the Ministry of Information and Communication, Korea. Prior to joining Chico State, he worked as a senior design engineer and a member of technical staff at Finisar, Avanex (now Oclaro), and Samsung, designing high-speed optical transceivers, fiber optic transmission systems, and subsystems. His current research interests include communication system design, fiber optics, optical signal processing, and ultrafast optical pulse shaping. He is a member of IEEE, IEEE Photonics Society, the Institute of Electronics Engineers of Korea (IEEK), and KICS; has published more than 20 journal articles and conference papers and is a holder of six U.S., European, and Korean patents. Lee, his wife Heeju, and their two young daughters recently moved from the Bay Area and look forward to exploring Chico.

Nelson Pizarro, Management, received his Doctor of Business Administration at Grenoble Ecole of Management, Grenoble, France in 2011. His primary research interest is in sustainability in organizations. He recently published in a French journal an article that examines the current case of a particular U.S. public college (Evergreen) affected by the decline of the state budget. He helped start six companies in the areas of business consulting, consumer electronics, consumer electronics refurbishing, and automatic vehicle location systems. He has done business in 46 countries. He also has experience in a corporate environment working for multinational companies such as Brother International and Uniden. In the government sector, he worked for AmeriCorps as a full-time volunteer, Miami Dade Community College, and at the city of Gainesville, Florida, as the small and minority business development coordinator. Pizarro just moved from Olympia, Washington, and is waiting for his wife, Kathy, to join him. When he is not teaching he meditates, practices yoga, and bikes.

Ben Seipel, School of Education, recently completed his PhD in educational psychology at the University of Minnesota–Twin Cities. His research focuses on the cognitive and neurological process of reading comprehension and vocabulary acquisition while reading. Specifically, through the use of eye-tracking, EEG, and fMRI, he has examined how people create coherent mental representations of narratives when they encounter inconsistencies in text. He also has written a reading comprehension test that diagnoses different cognitive processing issues for struggling readers in 3 grades. He is currently developing this test into a computer-adaptive assessment. In the classroom, Seipel enjoys discussing classic and current research topics and how those topics can better inform teaching practices. Prior to his research career, Seipel worked as a Spanish teacher in various K–12 settings. He moved here with his partner, dog, and cat. He regrets having to leave his ice hockey equipment behind in the frozen Midwest.